Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Ray is putting together a 3speed reverse transmission, this is the little gear that makes the bike go back wards. This transmission is being built in a reproduction case. There was too much end play in the spot that this gear goes, so I had to make up a thrust washer to space it closer to the main drive gear. This was the only modification that was needed to use the repro case.

Here is a motor for a 47 that we are doing for a customer. The heads were leaking and the customer wanted it detailed out, so we did everything but split the cases. HEre are all of the gears and oil pump installedCam cover--check!Tanya made me lunch to take to work. I figured it was a good opportunity to try out our new label maker. I think that my sandwich is safe from being eaten by anyone but me.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Here is a neat picture of three 36 transmission cases together. two of them are late 36 cases and one is early. Pretty neat picture. I don't know if I will have three of them together in one spot again. Two of them just got added to the batch of transmissions which brings the total tooooooo 14 transmissions. holy cow! The early one is for my dads 36

HEre is a late 38 39 head that a huge fin is missing from. I made one last night, welded it on, and the heat from the weld pulled away from the other fins. I have never had to weld such a big fin on. I broke it off and have a few other ideas to try. I'll keep you posted.

man o man this is beautiful stuff

I can't wait to have my pope engine this complete. These things are works of art.

Friday, November 26, 2010

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving. Here is a pic of a really neat minneapolis that I took while traveling for the holiday. My friend Bryan is building it to sell. Let me know if you would like his contact info. This bike is amazing!

HEre is a 46 fl that my daddy just mounted the carb on and finished up.

here is a customer's 46 motor before he sent it to us. It was outside in a field for fifty years and was frozen solid. We had to do a lot of case repair to this motor and deal with a lot of pitted up nasty parts. IT was a difficult engine to rebuild, but was well worth the effort.

Here is pete's motor almost finished. Still have to do the circuit breaker, but it is in a lot better shape now.

Friday, November 19, 2010

here is a neat pic of re drilling the hole in a shifter arm. It is pretty common for the holes to be completely worn out in these little pieces which causes poor shifting. I weld up the ones that are worn out, sand and file them, then drill a .265 hole in them and finish it off with a .400 counter sink.

Here are a bunch of them after being fixed. This pic is a few days old and they have already been sent off for cad and nickel plating.

here are a couple motors that my dad is tearing down, one is a 52 fl and the other is a 39el. We still have a few more engines to tear down after these. I love motors!!!!

here is a pic of four of the twelve transmission cases that got painted today. The paint is dolph's er 44, this helps prevent oil seeping into the casting and discolor it. we paint the inside of engine cases with this stuff too. the bottom studs and drain plugs are installed in before they are painted to insure a good seal. There are still another eight cases too do! yikes.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Just in case you ever wondered how many knuckleheads would fit on a handy lift....

we had to pull the speedo out of our original paint 49, it was whining and making funny noises, so it got sent up to canada to be gone through. This face is soooo nice. Janus will take care of the mechanics of it and leave the glass, and faces alone.

here is a pic of my arm, it is still healing two months after the crash. I just had a doctors appointment yesterday, and he said that I can't lift any more than five pounds with it for another six to eight weeks. Most of the mobility in my hand is coming back, but my thumb is still really messed up and not bending correctly. I guess this stuff takes time and I am far from invincible haha

Sunday, November 14, 2010

last week went really well. I hung out at the shop for five days in a row which is a record since the wreck. I just helped out with sorting out parts and organizing parts upstairs. HEre is a set of heads for a bobber we are building in this batch of bikes. This is going to be the neatest bike that I have ever built.

here are three more sets that were in the batch. there are another two that are not in the pics. I love the way knuckleheads look. they are so beautiful.

some of the stuff I sorted out this week was transmission related. we are doing a batch of 12 transmissions, there are a lot of places for these old castings to break and crack. Here is the inside of a kicker cover after welding. the welding on the right side of cover is from fixing up a star crack from the clutch finger hitting the case. this is pretty common.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Last week Rich Schultz called me to ask if I would be interested in joining a club that he was starting up. Rich is an eighty something year old man that I have known since I was eight years old. He wrote the book on Henderson motorcycles, was one of the guys that helped start the davenport meet almost 40 years ago and was just given an honorary membership to the AMCA and most importantly he is a really great guy. Anyways, he sent me my certificate and complimentary pair of brown gloves, I am really glad that I made the list of guys.

Rich, my uncle Ricky in San Fran Cisco, Jay Leno and some of the AMCA Omaha chapters are the only other guys on the roster right now. The neatest part is that my dad isn't in, so we can all give him a hard time.

Friday, November 5, 2010

I have not been able to do too much or even been in the shop this week. I am still healing from my wreck, I can't believe how sensitive the human body is. There is still a lot of neat stuff going on in the shop though and cool bikes coming together.

Monday, November 1, 2010

This oil site guage project has been the most difficult part that we have ever made. My daddy and I are finally satisfied with the seams of the mold, the clarity of the tube and the overall product. We have over 20,000 miles on two proto types and are ready to go into production. I already have a small list of people on the pre order list, if you want one shoot me an email so that I can set you up when they arrive.

This morning we got a couple of our proto type switch terminal boards. They look great, I still have to fit them up and see how they work. Original ones are always warped and cause problems with your switch working properly.

Here ios the bottom. The part looks beautiful, I will know how it performs later in the week!

And finally we just got four 36 to 38 brake light switches in the mail too! These are nearly perfect!

OOOOOOHHHHHH AHHHHHHH I cant wait to put one on my 36 and wheelie test it!~